


the portrait

by wildcard_47



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls, James In A Dress, M/M, Miss Fitzjames Will See You Now, Mr. Big Artiste Strikes Again, Semi-Clothed Sex, Sexy Portraiture, We Know What Art Is: It's Paintings of Horses, slightly sub!Francis if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:13:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Sequel to"faultless unity"!A fortnight passed, yet there was not one word about what Francis had glimpsed in James’s sketchbook...
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 18
Kudos: 143





	the portrait

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [faultless unity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17351486) by [wildcard_47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47). 



A day passed, then another, and a third, and soon enough it had been a fortnight – yet there was not one word about what Francis had glimpsed in James’s sketchbook.

Even if James had not wanted his drawings to be viewed that night _ ,  _ the  _ Terror  _ Captain had showed no skill for subterfuge in the glimpsing. It was patently, almost hilariously, obvious that he had spied something out, judging by the way he’d tossed the sketchbook back onto the table in haste and practically dived into his usual chair. The truth had been writ clear across the Irishman’s face and in every blessed word he spoke thereafter.

Still, James could not account for the silence. 

By all reckoning, Francis ought to have shared this information with a close friend by now: Blanky, or perhaps Jopson, or even one of his trusted Lieutenants. Or should have gone the opposite way and taunted James about the damn things in private till the end of time. Some manner of direct recognition.

Did Francis dislike the drawings themselves? James could not bear it if the answer was yes.

Soon enough there was no time to dwell on the subject: their rations continued to deteriorate, Francis gave up the whiskey, James’s duties increased tenfold, and the only time he could even glance at his closed sketchbook for more than a few minutes at a time was when he was sitting alone in Francis’s cabin, relieving Jopson or MacDonald from their watch.

Tonight, he was blotting the sweat from Francis’s fevered brow with a cool cloth and humming a nameless tune when a soft rasp from the bunk made him startle.

“What’re y’doing?”

“Good Christ.” James caught Francis’s bleary-eyed gaze with a start, and quickly moved his hand to Francis’s temple. “You’re awake.”

“‘Cause y’won’t stop poking me,” grumbled Francis. James withdrew his hand immediately.

“Sorry.”

_ “James.” _ Raspy voice now tinged with a dark humour. “Don’t.”

“All—all right.” James resumed his ministrations, without the aid of the cloth this time, smoothing damp strands of Francis’s hair behind one ear. “I would offer to lend you my curling tongs, but I think you might have me tossed overboard.”

“Hmph.” Francis grinned, then winced, and lay very still against his pillow. “Shan’t.”

“What? You’ll not toss me off  _ Terror _ after all?”

“I’ve seen your book, James.” Francis closed his eyes, visibly pained. “‘M sorry’ve—”

James stilled his hand, let his fingertips caress the soft skin at Francis’s temple. “Francis, I know.”

The scowl he got in return nearly made him laugh; he bit his lip to stay composed.  “Did it not occur to you that I left the room for rather a long time? And did not inquire as to what you were doing whilst I was gone?”

He expected frustration, or even anger, but Francis merely blinked, and made an unhappy noise, like the growl Fagin gave when he was woken from his favourite place of repose… on James’s bunk.

“Why don’you draw yourself?”

James drew back in surprise. “What?”

“‘S most of  _ Erebus _ in there.” Febrile blue eyes searched his own. “An’  _ Terror.  _ An’ me. But not you.”

“Well, I,” and here, James stumbled, “you know my reputation, sir. I cannot possibly aspire to further humility if ever I am found with a book of self-portraits in my possession.”

“But you’re handsome,” slurred Francis. “An’ ‘m jus’ me.”

James had no witty rejoinder for this remark.

“Promise me you will do.” Francis’s eyes were fluttering closed. Surely he would not be able to stay awake much longer. “Promise it, James.”

“All right. All right.” Startling, James realized his hand was now cupping Francis’s cheek. “I promise. Are you happy now?”

“Nnngh,” mumbled the  _ Terror  _ Captain, and promptly drifted off to sleep.

##

Alone in  _ Erebus’s _ Great Cabin, James was studying his now-finished portrait with the deepest skepticism. It was only charcoal on pale paper; he had not wanted ink nor brush. His rapidity must have shown through in the drawing. It was not very much like the others. Not very good, really.

“Would you like some tea, sir?”

James glanced over, saw John Bridgens in the doorway with a tea tray in hand.

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

Bridgens deposited his bounty onto the table in a graceful way, but it was not till he had poured the tea and added the sugar – the one true luxury James still allowed himself – that he spoke up again.

“You’ve a fascinating perspective, Captain. This one is particularly thoughtful.”

James turned his attention back to the drawing. “I am sure that is supposed to be a compliment, although I confess I do not see the appeal of the work, myself. Perhaps I have been staring at it too long.”

_ Or got tired of my own reflection in the looking-glass. _

“Rest assured I do mean it as a compliment, sir. From an artistic point of view, it’s very evocative, even given the romanticism of modern artists. Less about the subject and the accuracy of depiction than the feeling it provokes.”

“Oh, Bridgens. Even Goya and Turner manage to keep form recognizable.”

“Yes, but I think you’re speaking for yourself, as the creator of this piece, whereas the work must stand on its own two feet to be considered by all others.” Bridgens approached the book, took up a nearby pencil as if he were about to stand at the blackboard for a lecture. “The humanity of the face cannot be denied; it has all the recognizable features, along with a few unique attributes. But the life suffused within this face, and the dueling instincts depicted through the charcoal medium… honestly, I—” and here, Bridgens stopped, and let out a rueful laugh. “Beg your pardon, Captain. Art in all its forms is a subject I enjoy discussing, as you can see.”

Smiling, James touched the steward’s extended wrist lightly, to show he took no offense. “Between this and your great collection of books, I am convinced you have missed your true calling in life. Ought to be a public lecturer on the London stage, to rival Mister Dickens himself.”

“You are very kind, sir.”

Sighing, James glanced back at the piece. “I suppose I could be too quick to pass judgment. I am been commissioned for this piece, so it is not in my usual style.”

“Well.” Bridgens did not ask whom the illustrious recipient was. Perhaps he knew well already. Perhaps he did not want to know. “It is a good piece, Captain. I am sure the man who receives it will commission you further.”

##

“Hm.” Francis kept squinting at the paper in his hands, turning it one way and then another before uttering his verdict. “Well, it’s...a good rendering. Very striking.”

“You don’t like it.” James resisted the urge to snatch the paper away and ball it up, or perhaps toss it into the brazier. “No matter. Style is rather experimental, after all. And I do not look near as vivid as the portraits drawn early in the voyage. We shall tally it as an attempt at form and nothing more. In that spirit, do not feel obliged to—to keep the bl—”

“James,” murmured Francis, and reached out to touch the back of his hand.

Startled, James fell silent. 

Francis kept still for several seconds before expelling a deep breath.

“I know why you should share this piece with me, hm?” Two fingers tapped a loose pulse atop the knob of his wrist. “Our winter has been long. And dark. And there—there are many aspects of that darkness of which we cannot speak often. Particularly to the men.”

“Yes.” James would be a fool if he could not admit that much.

“But we two,” continued Francis, tapping the back of James’s wrist again, “can share such burdens with the other, hm? Not merely as a First and his Second, but in the spirit of—of—aiding our brother’s deep melancholy, till the light returns to us.”

James must have looked surprised, or puzzled, because Francis sat forward, and touched his free hand to the side of James’s arm, just near the elbow.

“S’pose I had hoped you might create something….”

“What?” asked James.

“Well.” A soft pink flush crept into Francis’s face, and he glanced down at the ground before continuing, his voice soft. “Erm. Joyful.”

_ Joyful? _

“I don’t understand.” James sat forward, trying to catch Francis’s gaze. “You wish me to—to pose as if I am—as if we are not all—?”

_ Miserable? Wasting away? _

“No,” Francis insisted, and gripped his wrist. “Never that. It was—that is to say, your gift, these drawings, they delight in our shipmates to no end. Each man is drawn with tender affection, down to the last ship’s boy. And I suppose I wanted—I mean, I  _ hoped _ you might include yourself among their number. So I might see that. And—and have it. To keep with me. Goddamn  _ ice melt. _ ” He pulled his hands away, swiping suddenly at his damp face and the slurry around his collar as if it were the result of some iceberg’s personal vendetta. “Bloody everywhere, sorry.”

A hot, sharp sensation stung in James’s throat, the heat of it searing through all manner of rational thought or military protocol. Francis did not merely want a keepsake. What he described was intensely personal, the sort of item one might take with them at the beginning of a voyage. More like a—

“A token?” He watched the line of Francis’s throat as his First swallowed hard. “Is that what you mean?”

After a beat, Francis nodded, once.

_ Oh.  _ “And—you should like it to be encouraging. For the long walk.”

Another nod, jerky and small.

Exhaling, relieved beyond words, James reached out for the  _ Terror  _ Captain’s hand once more, and was glad when Francis accepted this gladly, squeezing his fingers. They said no more about it, then; Francis merely folded the drawing in his hands into fourths, and deposited the square of paper into his breast pocket.

##

The first drawing James created was a quick sketch of himself in sweater and shirtsleeves, from the waist up. Even from the perspective of the mirror, it was more cheerful than the first attempt at self-portraiture; although James was not visibly joyous  _ per se _ , he thought mainly about Francis’s best qualities as he worked, and what might make the man fully happy once they got to Fort Resolution. His posture and overall expression was markedly more tender as a result, which was an improvement over the last. 

But it was not, James felt, the sort of portrait that could sustain a man through eight hundred miles of hauling in subzero temperatures.

The second drawing was far more playful. These were quick comedic renderings of what James imagined they might have looked like as true and open friends, dating back to the beginning of the voyage. First, the two of them stood out on the makeshift football pitch, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked in their dress uniforms, but far from attention—James was stuffing snow down the collar of a squirming Francis’s greatcoat as a horrified Jopson looked on. Next came a solemn gathering of officers in the wardroom listening to James tell the Chinese sniper story, while an ill-tempered Francis pretended to faint into Doctor MacDonald’s lap in order to get out of hearing it. A third vignette featured Tom Blanky and Francis sharing a smoke on the quarterdeck, cackling to each other about certain unnamed members of the Admiralty. (James had never heard them utter a single unkind word about any of the Lords in his presence, even Sir John Ross, but he could imagine the flow and tenor of such invective easily enough.)

On an impulse, he pulled out a third sheet of paper, and began to sketch, the lines flowing quick and confident across the page. A flurry of images—the swirl of wind and snow—the shock of bright fabric against dark wood—began to take shape.

James could not say that he had a particular goal in mind with this sketch, save making Francis smile whenever he saw it. Imagining what the voyage ought to have been—could have been—with the two of them together.

##

“Good god, Fitzjames.” Francis burst out laughing when he got to the sketch of the wardroom, stabbing a finger at his part of the scene in question. “Draw your pistol. I  _ never  _ feigned illness to get out of hearing that tale.”

“You wanted to.” James could not keep a straight face, no matter how hard he tried, and settled instead for clapping a hand to Francis’s shoulder. “Would have considered it in those days, if only to escape the sound of my voice.”

“I’ll not deny that. And if your Chinese sniper story becomes any longer, I may still attempt desertion at any moment.”

But Francis’ eyes sparkled as bright as the lamps while he thumbed to the next page. James removed his hand from Francis’ shoulder.

“Anyway. And then there’s the  _ piece de resistance _ . I was musing over that masquerade you’d done in the Antarctic, with Ross and Jopson and all the others, and what it might have looked like, here. Just—something whimsical. Silly.”

He had titled the piece  _ Carnivale,  _ and in a smaller, neater hand, had written  _ Presenting Captain F.R.M. Crozier of H.M.S. Terror and Miss Jane Fitzjames, H.M.S. Erebus. _

James could not resist glancing over to see if Francis was still grinning, but the  _ Terror  _ Captain’s face had gone still and slack, his mouth forming an  _ oh  _ of surprise.

“Was this,” Francis cleared his throat, voice little more than a whisper, “ah, drawn from—from life?”

The pad of his thumb just brushed the puffed sleeve of James’s gown.

James frowned down at the paper. Surely Francis was not referring to his own posed figure; although the Francis of the portrait was dressed in full uniform, there was nothing particularly shocking about his bearing nor the grin on his face. “Meaning—my costume?”

Francis merely nodded.

“Well,” James said, flushing slightly to admit this aloud, and tugging at his collar with one hand, “you know Sir John brought over the entire trunk, just as Parry did for the voyage of ‘28. And—of course I, ah, imagined what it might be like to wear such a gown, if only for an evening. The way its fabric might flow or fall or—feel beneath my hands. Difficult to capture unless one… observes the garment up close.”

There was an audible click beside him as Francis swallowed hard. Just as suddenly, James spotted the tremor in his fellow Captain’s hands, and the fierce blush in Francis’s cheeks as he spoke.

“How did it? Feel to you. Erm. When you—once you—put it on?”

“In truth, I—” Understanding ripped over James like a strong, sharp wind, and he bit his tongue to keep from blurting out the next sentence.  _ I was afraid to. I wanted it too badly _ . “Well, it—called to me. The colour. The texture. Softer than silk.”

“Oh,” murmured Francis, so quietly James was not sure if he realized he had spoken.

“Would—Francis, what might you say if—if I drew another portrait in this manner?”

Francis did not look over, posture now so rigid he may as well have been frozen to the chair. “No. That isn’t necessary.”

“Perhaps not, but,” James could not say why he had become so determined in this action, or why he courted such dangerous ground so fiercely by grasping Francis’s arm, “I should like to create another for you especially, if you would allow me. I could perhaps,” he dropped his gaze, suddenly shy, “showcase the costume to you. As I worked.”

Francis’s eyes were glazed; his mouth open in shock.  _ “James.” _

Desire flooded James like a wave, leaving him reeling, grasping for purpose as he reached for the closest buoy: Francis’s hands. “Let me do this for you, Francis. Please. For both of us. I—would you not see how I wear it?”

After a moment, Francis nodded. His face blazed a bright red. “Yes.”

“Right,” said James, and let out a breath. He felt dizzy. “Well, then. May as well try it on the same night next week, after the first dog watch. I believe the men will be occupied enough.”

“‘Tis a Sunday,” Francis pointed out in his usual rasp, though he wore anticipation on his face the way some men wore their gold, almost painfully bright.

“It is.”

“And you do not…?”

“Mind?” James pretended at a confidence he was not sure he felt, draining the last of his coffee from his mug. “Hm. I daresay even two Captains deserve a brief respite from duty on the day of our Lord.”

Francis nodded again to show he had heard, seeming to accept this as he quickly rose to his feet, and buttoned his waistcoat. “Perhaps we are due an answered prayer.”

Before James could parse such a bold declaration, or add any encouragement of his own, Francis vanished from the confines of the wardroom and out onto the orlop.

##

Francis arrived on  _ Erebus  _ at the appointed time on the appointed day, and although all seemed routine on the surface, inside he found his nerves had reached a zenith previously unknown to him. He had not felt such brute force longing in several years, not even in Van Diemen’s Land, when each new interaction with Sophia felt like having swallowed a family of butterflies for breakfast. 

The sheer terror and exhilaration which now twined heavy in Francis’s stomach, and had done so for six and a half days without ceasing, threatened to swallow him up whole. It did not resemble any flirtation Francis had ever experienced previous; the feeling was far more all-encompassing than that. It was like standing on  _ Terror’s  _ quarterdeck as two ice shelves towered over them, lashed from head to toe by awful rain. It was like the moment he had passed his midshipman’s examination, his deep shock suffused with unabashed delight.

It was like, Francis thought as Bridgens escorted him into the Great Cabin, plied him with tea, and promptly departed, the first time any woman had ever looked at him as more than a plain-faced boy in a room full of hale, handsome men.

In front of his chair, the door to James’s berth still sat closed.

And soon he should see that woman, the imitable Miss Fitzjames, clad in a gown of scarlet and gold. Would be able to look at her with his own eyes—hear her—sit with her as she drew… oh, God. He wanted to lean forward and put his head between his knees to keep from fainting. He wanted to push the door open and drink deeply of a James who would be utterly unrecognizable to him.

“Francis,” said a low, dark voice.

Turning to stare at the door as it creaked open, Francis’ heart sped up when first he heard the rustle of satin in the shadows. And when he saw James, dressed in a faded crimson gown that still held a commanding elegance even after twenty years in a trunk, he could hardly speak.

A queer, proud light had now entered James’s eyes. He drew himself to his full height. “How do I look?”

Staring at James’s figure in that gown, at the lithe, narrow waist nipped small by laces and stays, at the bloom of lean hips below that, or even the broad, sturdy shoulders now bared to his gaze, Francis could hardly breathe.

“Fucking hell,” was all he could rasp.

James raised an eyebrow. An easy smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he shook his head no, and stepped forward, clasping his hands in front of him. “You, sir, are the Captain of a flagship in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, and as such, I expect you to remain a gentleman.”

Such casual boldness stirred Francis’s blood. “Do you?”

“Indeed.” James gathered his skirts in one hand as he stepped over a particularly slick patch of ice. “Although you shall see me in repose within my bedchamber, as a consummate professional, I expect to get what I want.”

Mute, Francis could only nod.

Crooking her finger in a  _ come-forward  _ gesture, Miss Fitzjames led Francis into her berth, and gestured to a chair which she had placed directly facing the bed, before closing and locking the door. “Now, sir. You shall sit here.”

“All right,” said Francis, though he could not resist touching a gold ribbon on her dress with two fingers as she passed. Christ above. Soft as fresh butter.

Miss Fitzjames tossed him a glare from over her shoulder before she hopped up to perch on her bunk. “I saw that.”

“And I remained a gentleman, did I not?”

“In all but name,” returned Miss Fitzjames. 

Francis’s amusement lasted nearly as long as it took for Miss Fitzjames to recline against the pillows. One sleeve of her dress dipped down to showcase her bare shoulder and the lace of her stocking tie peeked innocently out from under the rucked-up hem of her dress. Then the heat returned to his cheeks full force. “May I touch you?”

Her pencils and a new, small sketchbook were already balanced in her lap. “Once my portrait is finished. Not a moment sooner.”

Francis was about to open his mouth to make some smart reply when the lady met his gaze.

“And you may not,” she said lightly, as she took up her pencil, “touch yourself, either. Is that understood?”

“Fucking hell,” he whispered again. “Yes.”

She laughed, a light, airy titter, before meeting her own proud gaze in the mirror that hung at the foot of her bed.

“Good. Then we may begin.”

Enraptured, Francis watched as Miss Fitzjames’ stare into the looking-glass turned soft and contemplative, assessing her figure with new eyes. He had never watched an artist at work before, which was arresting enough, but knowing that the lady was about to draw something  _ just for him  _ made the setting all the more exciting.

First, she put pencil to paper, and drew a series of light, quick lines and circles; Francis could not see what she was doing per se, but he could recognize the pencil strokes. Or at least he thought he could; he was listening and watching so intently it was difficult to concentrate on anything save the scrape of her pencil or eraser along rough paper.

“You’re very quiet, sir,” observed Miss Fitzjames after a few minutes had passed. Light sketching had now turned to sharp, full lines. “Do you not find my company stimulating?”

Francis wet his lips. “I do. Is it not obvious?”

“Well, I do not flatter myself unduly in saying you appreciate the outfit. But you did not come all the way to my bedroom just to glance at such voluminous skirts, surely.”

“What…” began Francis, as Miss Fitzjames flipped a page in her book, put it to one side, and drew her hem up past the lace tops of her stockings. And then he fell quiet again, staring open-mouthed at the expense of bare skin now revealed to his eyes. She was wearing nothing above those stockings, not even a shift.

Dark eyes raked over her newest reflection before she turned to catch Francis’ eye. “Perhaps I ought to capture this angle, as well?”

His cock twitched harder in an instant. He could not speak.

“Yes. I think this will do nicely,” she said, and took up her pages again.

Christ, this was torture of the most exquisite nature. Francis did not think he had ever been held at arm’s length for so long, particularly when the woman in question appeared to pay no attention to him at all on the surface. And yet, each time he shifted in his seat or exhaled shakily or moved his toes inside his well-worn boots, he could feel her eyes scorching holes into his middle. Hotter than a stoked brazier.

“Look at me, Francis,” she said in a low voice.

Francis’s head jerked left. He noticed her brushing some fleck of grit off the edge of her sketchbook, but that hardly mattered—not when the tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips immediately after. Not when he could see the faintest shadow of her yard, concealed beneath those layer-cake petticoats. He was pulsing so hard inside his trousers that the fabric cinched him and his balls ached with pent-up need, now, oh, sweet sodding Christ, please let me have you; I’ll not spoil the portrait, I promise; please give this much to me.

“Such impatience, sir,” clucked Miss Fitzjames. Francis startled to realize he had spake some portion of that aloud, but it did not ease the pounding in his temples or the rush of delight that bloomed in his chest. “Had I known a little token was all it took to have you at my mercy, I should have captured you thus ages ago.”

“I’d have let you,” Francis said hoarsely, his hands now clutching at his knees.

Miss Fitzjames made a pleased noise; without warning, she shifted on the berth, so that she was now sitting against the berth wall, facing him. As she settled again, she made a show of arranging her skirts around her bare thighs. Nimble fingers traced upwards along hard muscle before returning to their previous position.

Francis was getting lightheaded again. “You’ll not….to yourself?”

Miss Fitzjames’ eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline, and a slight blush rippled across her high cheekbones. “Naughty man. I gather you enjoy observing in all respects.”

“Only for you.” Francis’s grip on his own knees was so taut he had to remove his hands to the sides of the swivel chair. “You know not what you do to me, miss.”

“Oh, my darling Francis.” Miss Fitzjames took up her sketchbook again, and added a few more quick flourishes to the bottom corner of the page. Francis was not so far gone to miss the plain fact that her fingers were shaking. “I know precisely what I do to you here.” Her eyes darted down to the front of his trousers. “I see it, also.”

“Fuck.” Glancing down, Francis saw a wet spot darkening one side of his front placket, and closed his eyes in sheer desperation, attempting to stem the tide. “James, please.”

“Miss Fitzjames,” she corrected softly, eyes darker than pitch. Her hands had stilled along the bottom of her sketchbook.

“Please,” whispered Francis again. “Miss Fitzjames, I beg of you. Do not leave me cold and wanting any longer.”

Slowly and deliberately, she blew eraser shavings from the seam of her sketchbook, letting her mouth purse a little longer than was strictly necessary after she had done this. Seconds later, she closed her book, and set it atop a nearby shelf.

“Come to me,” she murmured.

Surging forward, Francis was coltish and clumsy on his feet, but he could not bring himself to mind it, not when he was kissing the daylights out of this woman—urging her mouth open, plundering it with his tongue, feeling her breath stutter in her throat as his hands fisted themselves in her long hair. She had moved so far forward that she was in danger of listing off the berth rail entirely, but Francis pressed her in place, their hips snapping together as they sought pressure and tension and rhythm.

“Yes,” James was whining into his mouth as they rutted against each other, still fully-clothed, the word half-slurred. “Yes, yes.”

James wrapped his legs around Francis’s back and pressed him closer with a bare heel; shocked, Francis groaned at the rightness of it all, even as his thighs started to tremble and his knees wobbled under him. He had to tear his mouth away, burying his face in the swirl of fabric at her breast instead, biting at it; he could not catch his breath.

“Beautiful,” he choked out, as James seized his wrist and guided it beneath his skirts. Francis’s fingertips brushed the head of a dripping hot cock, and he shuddered in delight to feel James’s desperation at long last. “Fucking hell, James. Fucking—” 

Trembling fingers urged Francis’s fist closed; Francis had no sooner begun to stroke, fast and clumsy, when James made a pained noise and gasped, “There!”

Francis sped up his strokes, forcing his eyes open so he could not miss a second of such bold beauty; all at once, James went rigid, pale gleaming throat now bared to Francis’s gaze. He shuddered and spent in great pulsing spurts over Francis’s fingers as his thighs locked ‘round Francis’s hips, groaning in tandem with the release. And as James finished, still writhing so prettily into Francis’s stiff cock as his climax ebbed, Francis felt the pull of inevitability deep in his own belly, and trembled in anticipation of the peak. His grip on James’s cock stuttered and stopped; his world burst and narrowed to nothing save the rhythm of James’s hips against his own—James’s mouth along his ear—James’s voice, urging him through it.

When he returned to himself, it felt as if he had spent an hour standing next to a firing cannon; his ears were ringing, and his fingers and toes trembled with phantom vibrations.

“Francis.” A soft touch came behind his ear. James was fixing the sides of his disheveled hair, watching him with wide, searching eyes, as if he had just witnessed the aurora within this very berth. “Are you well?”

“Am I—?” Caught off-guard by the question, Francis began to laugh. “Well, I am—very well today. And yourself?”

James laughed with him; Francis caught a glimpse of his crooked tooth as he grinned. A flush of pride rippled through his middle at making James so visibly happy. “Very well, sir.”

“I believe a certain Miss Fitzjames has ruined my trousers,” Francis said after another moment, which caused James’s bemused smile to widen.

“She will help you launder all in a moment,” James began moving slowly and a bit stiffly away from the rail. But the stiffness in his limbs was offset by the quiet suffusion of delight that lingered in his face, and the high, soft blush that now pinked his cheeks. “If you shall help remove her stays, that is.”

“I—could be persuaded to help.”

Now descending the steps, James’s smile was filled with mischief as he glanced over. “As always, Francis, you remain ever the gentleman.”

  
  


The portrait, when they reached Fort Resolute, was faded and torn around the edges, folded and pressed between the pages of the smallest book in  _ Erebus’s  _ library, which in turn remained housed in Francis’s breast pocket through endless weeks of hauling. 

Despite its imperfections, despite all that had conspired against them out on the ice, it remained—fragile yet persistent—and so did they.

**Author's Note:**

> I LIIIIIIIIIIVE.
> 
> Woof. Global pandemics and disasters aside, this story had me stuck for a long time -- but I am happy to have finished it at last. (As MasterOfAllImagination quipped: they finally fucked!) 
> 
> Anyway, point is: I'm still around, I've still got Terror stories in the backlog, it's just a matter of me working through them/trying to get through quarantine with my sanity vaguely intact.
> 
> Hope you all are healthy and are finding little things to appreciate these days.... <3


End file.
